Minetest for stories

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ptvirgo
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Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

I'm playing around with the question "what stories could be told via Minetest?"



Image

Steve Sapp can actually be found on the undercore server, at least for now.

(follow the link for some hints. Visit undercore to find him if you know where to look.)
Last edited by ptvirgo on Sun Jan 07, 2018 18:41, edited 1 time in total.
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

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voxelproof
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Re: Minetest for stories

by voxelproof » Post

ptvirgo wrote:I'm playing around with the question "what stories could be told via Minetest?"
Try better asking "what stories cannot be told using Minetest". As it stands now it's much too general, to the point of having no meaningful content.

What stories can be told via alphabet?...
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Re: Minetest for stories

by Shara » Post

To me, "what stories could be told?" is a far less interesting question than "what mechanics does Minetest give which could be used for storytelling?". I'd love to see more people exploring this.

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Re: Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

Ouch.

I mean thanks, but ouch.

Did you click on the link? Did you find Sapp?

I know I'm just getting started "no meaningful content" seems a little bit harsh. It's meant to be something where you put the pieces together by exploring the snippets and the game rather than just someone saying "this happened and this happened and this happened the end."
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

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Re: Minetest for stories

by Shara » Post

ptvirgo, you are actually exploring the second question I raised, so please don't worry. Games offer different approaches to storytelling, and I find what people do with that very interesting.

I may be wrong, but I think voxelproof was referring to Minetest, not to what you're doing. MTG is so general that it's hard to know what it would be suited for, and it would be easy to use it for just about anything.

It's also not obvious that the picture is a link, so you might want to edit your post to explain that.

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Re: Minetest for stories

by voxelproof » Post

ptvirgo wrote:Ouch.

I mean thanks, but ouch.

Did you click on the link? Did you find Sapp?

I know I'm just getting started "no meaningful content" seems a little bit harsh. It's meant to be something where you put the pieces together by exploring the snippets and the game rather than just someone saying "this happened and this happened and this happened the end."
Sorry, I didn't mean my post to sound like that (harsh) :) I understand the general idea of pursuing some narrative arc providing some sort of frame to open-world games. It's a very interesting and difficult goal to achieve.

I wonder what kind of "storytelling" you seek in Minetest games? Is it the one generated by players' interactions on servers, or rather something like in Legends Mode in Dwarf Fortress? Personally, since I have no interest in online gaming, the latter is much more fascinating and engaging to me (especially from a point of view of an explorer of virtual worlds).
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Re: Minetest for stories

by voxelproof » Post

Shara wrote: I may be wrong, but I think voxelproof was referring to Minetest, not to what you're doing.
Yes, exactly.
To miss the joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson

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Re: Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

Thanks you two. This will actually be fun.

Given that this is a hobby/game that I'm just playing for fun, it's just at the level where was thinking about very small details and supplemental notes that could go along with a given build. Maybe over time it could come together to something richer.

So - In real life I got curious about the name of the library in my neighborhood. Turns out it was named after a person who dedicated a bunch of her life to volunteering to educate people there. There's also a bigger history behind it - an original town and people who donated money and dreamed of a better neighborhood, etc. I haven't researched all of it, but it got me thinking about the fact that almost everything I see has a rich history to it.

I haven't worked out the "best" way to do it for Minetest, but for my first build on undercore I looked at some images of old mines and read a couple of PR releases from companies just getting started for inspiration, and then imagined a semi-silly backstory for the mining operation there.

I like the idea that on future builds I could imagine different people with different motivations and circumstances behind them, and that the stories behind them could inform details of the build and (if I got good at it) make for more interesting explorations for anyone who comes along.

I'm not at the stage of knowing how to make it good, but I figured it might be a fun idea to try out and maybe other people have, or would, play with the same concepts for their own builds.
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

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Re: Minetest for stories

by Shara » Post

Some players on Red Cat created histories and mythologies for both specific buildings/cities they created, and even for the server itself as a whole. I was quite surprised the day I discovered a whole creation myth had been written for one of my servers, and it even made me sit back and really think about and appreciate the work so many people had done.

Sadly it is rare that I run into such a level of creativity. More of it is certainly very welcome.

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Re: Minetest for stories

by Sokomine » Post

ptvirgo wrote: Given that this is a hobby/game that I'm just playing for fun, it's just at the level where was thinking about very small details and supplemental notes that could go along with a given build. Maybe over time it could come together to something richer.
One of the most recent buildings I've seen that might fit those criteria is AspireMints halloween house on the Hometown server. FishyWet has also created a story with hints on the Xanadu server. It is rare to encounter such buildings with stories. They're a treasure.

In order to get more stories like that, it would be very helpful to be able to let mobs talk and communicate with players. Something along old point-and-click-adventures would be fine already. The trouble is that formspecs are a bit annoying to create.
A list of my mods can be found here.

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Re: Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

I saw a fun location to start a myth a while back, took a screenshot and then forgot to record the location. Might try to turn rediscovering it into a fun activity.

The old adventure style games were the best .. ! I don't know how to interact with Minetest code particularly, but implementing dialogue trees programmatically is pretty solvable. Gonna let that sit in the back of my head while I take baby steps where I can find them.
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

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Re: Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

... meantime: If you're up for brainstorming amusing Name / Epitaph combinations (or anything else that might be fun for a quick graveyard build), I could use them...!
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

ptvirgo
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Re: Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

Steve Sapp Found Dead

The body of Steve Sapp was found yesterday. The coroner's report states that Sapp appears to have fallen from a great height.

...

http://www.codeforyendor.xyz/steve-sapp ... orted.html
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

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Jabberwocky by voxelproof

by voxelproof » Post

Here is a graphical interpretation of the poem "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. It's sorta joke, but this is how I see the possibility to utilize Minetest as a story-telling tool. MT is not yet at the stage of providing self-generated stories (and neither is Minecraft and probably won't be in foreseeable future) but the ambience of certain areas, mods and texture packs evokes some imaginative mood which as I think is compatible with many stories known from literature.

This one is a pretty simple example, and although absurd it is nevertheless funny. I used the mod "Self-organizing systems" for the landscape and the Lotaviin Dragon map by Block_Fortress (as I've read in his license only filming it requires his permission). And, of course, all the screenshots are heavily edited with a 2D graphics software.

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Last edited by voxelproof on Fri Jan 26, 2018 22:15, edited 2 times in total.
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Jabberwocky by voxelproof

by voxelproof » Post

(deleted)
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ptvirgo
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Re: Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

@voxelproof - I got a huge kick out of that one! If you want to post it somewhere that I should link to or let me put in on codeforyendor, lmk.
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

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Re: Minetest for stories

by ptvirgo » Post

Here's the last bit of the Steve Sapp storyline. Points if you saw the pun coming from the beginning.

Image
Glass Ceilings: Good for Everyone's Safety
http://www.codeforyendor.xyz/glass-ceiling.html
{-| Visiting Minetest worlds and making up stories: www.codeforyendor.xyz -}

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Re: Minetest for stories

by voxelproof » Post

ptvirgo wrote:@voxelproof - I got a huge kick out of that one! If you want to post it somewhere that I should link to or let me put in on codeforyendor, lmk.
Thanks. Nice to hear a word of encouragement :) I didn't create it with much attention for details, rather intended it as a pretty simple example. However I believe that voxel open world games and gaming in general are yet to show it's potential as an inspiration for different arts.

Maybe in the future, when I find as I hope a better way to express myself through voxel environment of Minetest, I will try to go further with this sort of "art". Cheers :))
To miss the joy is to miss all. Robert Louis Stevenson

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Re: Minetest for stories

by Dokimi » Post

I have had an idea for how to add stories to Minetest, indeed how to create an entire Minetest Universe.

Check out my new mod lorebooks.

It adds lore books, like in Skyrim. It will need community involvement though to be any good.

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